Monday, March 28, 2005

Impish Gravitas

This has got to be the silliest story of the day: Elisabeth Bumiller in the NYT with the headline, "President Bush's New Public Face: Confident and 'Impishly Fun'", which related several of W's wisecracks, and asks the burning question, "Is this a new George Bush?"Ms. Bumiller is careful to present a balanced--one might even say nuanced--portrait of the president, by including a serious note from the president's chief of staff:

"The president still carries tremendous burdens," said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff. "I see that every morning when he walks into the Oval Office and gets the overnight reports as to what's been happening in the war on terror. He has to make decisions in many more areas of responsibility than most people realize."

To sum up, the president is confident, fun-loving but serious, and has to make a lot of decisions.Update: If you want to read a sharper dissection of Ms. Bumiller's piece, go to The Daily Howler.